The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel eBook

We are all at peace and happy now, but whenever my
thoughts fly back to that morning, whenever the ears
of memory recall those hideous yells of fury and of
hate, coupled with the equally horrible cries for pity,
which pierced through the walls behind which the six
of us were crouching, trembling, and praying, whenever
I think of it all my heart still beats violently with
that same nameless dread which held it in its deathly
grip then.

Hundreds of men, women, and children were massacred
in the prisons of that day—­it was a St.
Bartholomew even more hideous than the last.

Maman was trying in vain to keep our thoughts fixed
upon God—­papa sat on the stone bench, his
elbows resting on his knees, his head buried in his
hands; but maman was kneeling on the floor, with her
dear arms encircling us all and her trembling lips
moving in continuous prayer.

We felt that we were facing death—­and what
a death, O my God!

Suddenly the small grated window—­high up
in the dank wall—­became obscured.
I was the first to look up, but the cry of terror which
rose from my heart was choked ere it reached my throat.

Jean and Andre looked up, too, and they shrieked,
and so did Marguerite, and papa jumped up and ran
to us and stood suddenly between us and the window
like a tiger defending its young.

But we were all of us quite silent now. The children
did not even cry; they stared, wide-eyed, paralysed
with fear.

Only maman continued to pray, and we could hear papa’s
rapid and stertorous breathing as he watched what
was going on at that window above.

Heavy blows were falling against the masonry round
the grating, and we could hear the nerve-racking sound
of a file working on the iron bars; and farther away,
below the window, those awful yells of human beings
transformed by hate and fury into savage beasts.

How long this horrible suspense lasted I cannot now
tell you; the next thing I remember clearly is a number
of men in horrible ragged clothing pouring into our
vault-like prison from the window above; the next
moment they rushed at us simultaneously—­or
so it seemed to me, for I was just then recommending
my soul to God, so certain was I that in that same
second I would cease to live.

It was all like a dream, for instead of the horrible
shriek of satisfied hate which we were all expecting
to hear, a whispering voice, commanding and low, struck
our ears and dragged us, as it were, from out the abyss
of despair into the sudden light of hope.

“If you will trust us,” the voice whispered,
“and not be afraid, you will be safely out of
Paris within an hour.”

Papa was the first to realise what was happening;
he had never lost his presence of mind even during
the darkest moment of this terrible time, and he said
quite calmly and steadily now:

“What must we do?”

“Persuade the little ones not to be afraid,
not to cry, to be as still and silent as may be,”
continued the voice, which I felt must be that of
one of God’s own angels, so exquisitely kind
did it sound to my ear.